Choices
by Atlantia
Summary: MOVIEVERSE - The world turns on a series of moments, some more critical than others. When Edmund faces a choice in the tomb during "Prince Caspian" what would happened if he made a different one. No pairings or romance, unless you squint really hard.


Ok… well I was watching "Prince Caspian" the other day and this scene just got me… There was something really deep about the moment where Edmund kills the white witch and then storms out of the room, and I just thought to myself "How easy would it have been to go the other way?".

I've always liked the idea that there was more depth to the interactions between Edmund and Jadis – not in the "lovers" kind of way… Though the story sort of ended up being able to be read that way (though that's not how I wrote it)…

I always just thought that its treated so routinely as "good boy tricked by evil witch who realizes the error of his ways and repents and everyone miraculously forgives him". I mean Edmund had to already be part of the way there by the time he met Jadis that first time.

Anyway… I've messed heavily with canon in some parts and this is obviously based off the movieverse, not the books (where the whole scene with the ice wall never happens and Jadis doesn't make any appearance).

Hope it's not too bad.

**Choices**

Sacrifice.

Such an innocent sounding word for something that had the ability to make and break a Kingdom.

"The surrender or destruction of something prized or desirable for the sake of something considered as having a higher or more pressing claim."

A dictionary definition scarcely did it justice, barely managed to convey that through one simple act, a world could be changed.

Wrapped up safely in the cocoon of petty concerns that enthralled the world of mortal men, humanity had forgotten what it really meant to reach that point. They'd forgotten what it meant to be faced by a single moment, a single decision, that would forever alter how things were. But for Edmund, the memory of such moments was all too clear.

He understood what it was to face a choice, to know that lives rest within your hands. He understood how to weigh both sides trying to determine the 'best' outcome, when none of them were any better than the others. And most of all, he understood that sometimes, no matter what you did, there was going to be loss, and pain, and hurt… And that the only choice you really had was choosing who would suffer it.

He'd seen the same knowledge in the faces of the soldiers that walked the streets of London now, and crowded the distant docks. Innocence, health, life, love. They knew they were about to lose these things. It was hard to spot and even harder to recognize, but it was there, hidden beneath a front of bravery and daring, as though a willingness to sacrifice oneself was an undesirable trait or a weakness. Mankind was slowly breeding it out, replacing it with greed, power and vice, until most people no longer cared to acknowledge or even understand it. Edmund knew where to look though. He could recognize it in himself, a flicker of something haunting his eyes, a stranger that stared back at him from his own reflection.

Sometimes, surrounded by family and friends, he wondered if anyone else ever saw it.

Fighting had never been something Edmund particularly relished. He'd never rushed fearless into battle, banners flying and men cheering. Had he been old enough, he knew he wouldn't have been one of those rushing off to war by choice. That wasn't his way. It wasn't his destiny.

He remembered, dimly, the time of their last visit to Narnia. He remembered a half life lived as a King. He remembered an entire youth experienced and then mostly forgotten, a single step back through the wardrobe erasing the memory, but not the sin. He had known sacrifice. He had known loss.

He'd lost a family.

He'd lost a home.

He'd lost a Crown.

He'd lost a Queen.

He had known loss many times, until its coming was almost like that of an old friend, and he could feel it right to his bones. Not the loss of losing Narnia, or loss on the battlefield, but the loss of pieces of himself that were torn away each time.

His siblings didn't understand that. They couldn't understand that the decisions they had made here had impacted on him more. They thought he was just moody and temperamental. For them Narnia was a bright and wonderful place that made them lighter, simply for having lived it. Edmund felt only the darkness that he had accepted into his soul as the price of their visit. He had accepted that it would be his role to play in this new world they were living, he let them see him as the problem, so that they, and Narnia, could go on.

He remembered Peter, larger than life and glorious in victory as they struggled along their way to Narnia's 'Golden Age'. He could still see Susan, wise and just, as men and beast far and wise sought her council. He saw little Lucy, full of light and hope, the heart of a kingdom doomed to fall.

Even now, with their rule and their city buried under 1300 years of history, he could see Narnia respond to them as though it had been only days. He saw the great respect and admiration in their ragtag army's eyes as Susan walked by. He saw the almost holy reverence in hundreds of different faces at Lucy's unwavering dedication to Aslan. And Peter… Edmund had thought he'd almost burn himself bathing in the righteousness that blazed from within his older brother. For Peter the fight was glorious. For him it was something noble. It gave him strength. It made him the High King Narnia had long needed. They'd been here only moments really, but they'd all stepped back into their roles as easily as they'd left them. Kings and Queens, all the more glorious for the myth that surrounded them.

Edmund had never been meant to be King. At least not at his brother's side. The truth burned him, even as it severed the cords that tied him to the old Narnia they had left behind. They all had a part to play then, and those parts hadn't changed for all the years piled on top of them. He was the betrayer, the dark one, a sacrifice that gave Narnia peace of mind.

He could hear the faint whispers echoing in their cavernous hideaway whenever he was near, the disapproval as clear and cutting as it had been a millennium ago.

"_That's the one that helped the White Witch."_

"_King she named him, but he's no King of Narnia."_

"_He's the cold one, he is. Just like her."_

It was a small sacrifice compared to those made by some people. He hadn't lost his life, his family, his health. All he'd done was take the darkness and make it is own.

Jadis had shown him how to do it, as he crouched at the foot of her throne, dark power sliding through his thoughts. It was just one of the many lessons she'd drilled into him over the time he'd spent in her company. Give people an evil to focus on, and they will overlook another. So focused on the evil of the White Witch, Narnia had forgotten about the others outside its borders, forgotten the petty strife that could tear a land apart from within.

Edmund had taken her place, without complaint or struggle, as though he'd been preparing for it since he'd first taken a bite of the Turkish delight. He became the dark King. He who had betrayed his own blood. And beside him, Peter, Susan and Lucy, seemed to shine even brighter. All he'd had to sacrifice was a small piece of his soul, childish innocence, and hope. Cheap. So very cheap really, when for most, the price of an entire Kingdom was unimaginably higher.

How could he have done anything else? Peter could never have lived under the White Witch. Jadis would have broken him, snapped him like a twig just to watch the nobility seep out of him. Susan, she would have been nothing but a husk, a ghost of what she used to be, all the wonder leached out until her heart was as barren as the frozen wastes. And Lucy, so full of faith and hope, but so young and vulnerable. Jadis would have twisted her until she was something ugly and hateful, searching only for something to fill the empty space within her.

He was the only one of his family who could live with what she offered, who was prepared for the world the White Witch promised. There were others who agreed with him, who could see Jadis as something more, but there were more still that sided with Aslan. It had never been a choice really. His Queen had to die, so that many more could live. And so afterwards, when it was all over and the dust had settled, he tried to ignore the sideways glances, the whispered words, the subtle withdrawal that followed him, because he knew he'd done the right thing.

But there were times, still, when he wished that he was back there, surrounded by a cold that didn't touch him and a pure whiteness that didn't blind him. Late at night, as he lay in his small bed with the blankets tucked tightly around him, he could almost hear her voice, her power like a drug that threatened to wash him away or bring him to life, if he could just learn to walk the thin knife edge between submission and control.

"_My King."_

He'd made the choice then, the decision to put his faith in Aslan and hope that things worked out for the better, but this time it felt different. He knew the odds were against them, he could see it in Peter's tight glares and pinched lips, Caspian's melancholy brooding, and now, as if destined by fate it almost seemed as though that choice was being offered to him again.

The ice wall was only feet away from him, that pale arm stretched out toward Caspian as it had so often reached for him.

Behind him, the sounds of the fighting were mere distant echoes, the silence of his own mind broken only by his own memories and thoughts.

He could understand why these three wanted her back. Why they, who had never known her in life, would think of her as their only salvation. The power that came from her wand was but a hint of what she wielded in the flesh, like a drop of water beside an ocean, but even that was enough to remind him of what had been. They didn't know that once, he had been seated beside her and ridden the wave of that power struggling for even the most basic of thoughts. They didn't know that Jadis had no subjects, only followers.

He had been her King, not Narnia's, but hers, and even he had barely been able to resist what she offered. For them, this would not be the life they imagined. They would come to wish for the invaders to return.

But they would live to wish for it.

A drop of crimson hit dusty, forgotten stone as Caspian's hand crept closer, the sudden small splash clearer and louder than the clash of steel and armour.

The red dripping down the Prince's wrist was vivid against the pale mist of power that curled around him, wrapped so tightly around the boy's mind Edmund doubted he could understand anything but reaching for her. He struggled against it, some subconscious understanding that dated back to a time when their ancestors huddled fearful in trees, but was helpless to stop himself. Leading armies, laying out war strategies, that was for Caspian, as it was for Peter. The constant fight between giving in and freedom, that was Edmund's burden to carry.

He thought he blinked then, a split second while his eyes closed then opened, and suddenly it was Peter in the circle, Peter's arm reaching for her with a shake that did nothing to slow it. For that brief moment he could see the fight in his older brother's eyes, could see as it shifted to vague unease, as though he didn't quite understand what it was he was fighting against, and then the image became wavy and distorted as Edmund stepped in behind the ice and all he could see were vague shadows and shapes.

His sword was heavy in his hand as he slowly lifted it, the steel pulled down by the weight of so much history it threatened to overwhelm him. He'd lived this moment before, seen everything that was going to happen. Oh things were different this time, he had not directly ended her life last time, but he had caused it all the same.

And now he had to do it again.

The tip made a faint ringing noise as it brushed the back of the ice, the shining silver poised between pale, transparent shoulderblades, quivering as though it was possible for the sword itself to feel the cold.

One push, that's all it would take, a single thrust and once again she would be gone. He almost wished that he could just keep pushing and take Peter with her, for forcing the decision on him once again.

But that was unbecoming of him, wasn't what she would have wanted. Peter may have been righteous, and obnoxious, and incredibly noble, but he was also skilled, powerful, and had the love of the people. And men like that had a place in the world.

So instead he braces himself and whispers that he's going to do it. He stands there for a long moment recounting every evil thing she's done, every thought she drew from his mind, or put in there, and then her voice slides across his skin like a winter breeze.

"_You can't do it alone."_

The words are like water to a thirsty man, and Edmund drinks them down just as desperately, because they ring with the sound of truth, they echo with the thoughts he hasn't been able to rid himself of.

The ice splinters slightly around his blade, the handle now so cold it almost burns his flesh to hold it, but he doesn't push again.

The situation is different now. This time there is no Aslan, no force riding to the rescue. He knows Lucy believes, that she spends her days waiting for him to appear, and that he should trust her, because somehow she's always known.

But Jadis took that trust from him last time, showed him that blind faith was nothing but empty hope and broken dreams. She cured him of his childhood a lifetime ago, made him realize that sometimes, the hardest choices were those that only he would ever understand. That he could beg for forgiveness all he wanted, grovel and wish and beg, but the choice had to be made all the same.

"_You can't do it alone."_

That was the truth this time, like Aslan's arrival had been 1300 years ago, and the decision had to be different.

There was a flash that threatened to blind him, a crack like all of history breaking apart, as Peter's golden hand was gripped firmly by frosted white. The wall of ice fractured like crazed porcelain, then dissolved into a whirlwind of snowflakes that turned the warm fires cold blue and coated the walls so thickly in frost that the carvings could no longer be made out.

For an instant, a fraction of a second, Edmund felt the entire world change, destinies and fates colliding and twisting like a cloth caught in a mad breeze, unable to tell whether he'd done what he was meant to, or if everything was different. Then the feeling passed, the world was the way it was and always had been, and vicious, long restrained power swooped down on him as though to crush every thought from his head.

He fought with it, pulled at his own mind with a strength born of both desperation and need, and pushed the secret desire to surrender deep into that dark part of himself that he rarely let surface. In one moment his mind was both his and hers, King and Queen, light and dark, and then the wave crested and he couldn't help the slightly hysterical laughter that burbled out of his throat as his mind was once again his own.

He felt light and free, as though shackles had been removed from not only his physical body but his thoughts as well. All the darkness, all the thoughts that civilization told him he couldn't have, came flooding back and he could look at them in the light of day without flinching.

He wondered if this was how Peter felt as High King, if he could look at all the options and weigh them equally, if he had ever considered the ones that now filled Edmund's head.

He was King again. But he was no King of Narnia.

He could see them all looking at him, Lucy, Peter, Susan and even the dwarf, could see their faces as they took in where he was standing and understood that he could have stopped what was happening and hadn't. He watched puzzlement and fear turn to disappointment and anger, watched hands clench tight on weapons and then just as suddenly drop them with but a flick of a pale wrist.

Sacrifice.

"The surrender or destruction of something prized or desirable for the sake of something considered as having a higher or more pressing claim."

They wouldn't understand, _couldn't_ understand what he had just sacrificed for their lives. But Edmund didn't need them to. He'd made the choice, and only he ever had to understand why.

Pale lips quirked upwards at the edge, almost in approval at his thoughts, and then straightened again as though they had never moved.

"Come along Edmund dear."

She was already gliding towards the exit, a freezing wind whistling ahead of her like the chill touch of death itself, his legs pulling him along in her wake.

"I believe the world is waiting for us."

He passed through the other occupants of the room almost in a daze. He ignored the way Peter reached for him with angry fists and was hurled away, he didn't acknowledge Susan's supplicating hands that somehow couldn't reach him, and he didn't hear Lucy's desperate pleas that were swept away in the cold air.

All he felt was the cool hand on his shoulder guiding him along the long corridors.

All he heard were the whispered words of the crowds that were torn between praise and hatred.

All he knew was that he had just saved them all and they would never know.

And for now, that was all he needed.

_Fin~_


End file.
